CCTV, texts to parents: How one Sydney private school is tracking students’ toilet use

A Sydney private school has started tracking student bathroom use, watching students enter and exit the toilet on CCTV and alerting parents when their child relieves themselves during class time.

However, several parents have welcomed the real-time updates after students “trashed” the school’s freshly renovated bathrooms.

St Leo’s Catholic College in Wahroonga advised parents in a newsletter that it would increase supervision of toilet use following incidents of vandalism and “poor decision-making”.

Vice principal Patrick Brennan advised parents the school was trialling strategies to address the “concerning trend”, amping up supervision outside bathroom areas, encouraging students to use the facilities during breaks, increasing CCTV monitoring of entry and exit points and “engaging NSW Police where perpetrators are identified”.

The school has also started notifying parents when their child uses a bathroom during class.

“We have found that many of the issues occur when students access bathrooms unsupervised during class time. As a result, we have recently commenced a trial of tracking student access to bathrooms during lessons. This has provided valuable data to support conversations with both students and parents,” the newsletter said.

Brennan wrote that while some parents and carers may find the notifications “unnecessary or even frustrating”, it was not the school’s intention to “cause concern or suggest that a single bathroom visit is problematic”.

Some in the school community support the approach. Parent Nancy Helou said she was “up for it” if it meant students would keep in line.

“The younger ones just trash it. I am supportive of it, 100 per cent. I got my first notification yesterday … I thought he was in trouble at first,” she said.

One student said their peers had thrown wet toilet paper on the ceiling and removed doors from toilet stalls.

Grandmother Di Judson said the monitoring was a “trifle odd” but understandable, given the vandalism.

Mother Elaine Maatouk said she was “fine with it” given the rise in vandalism. “If they have to monitor children going to the bathroom during class time, that’s fine with me – I don’t want the school getting damaged,” she said.

In the newsletter, the school said: “The intent of the alert system is not to police normal behaviour, but to strengthen our partnership with parents where patterns may emerge and to support a culture where students make use of the seven available opportunities across the day; recess, lunch, and between lessons, wherever possible.

“That said, this is a trial, and your feedback is important. We will review the process and discuss it further at our upcoming Parents in Partnership Meeting later this term.”

St Leo’s principal Tony Gleeson said all security cameras were in “external and publicly accessible areas” and that “no cameras have ever been placed in private or sensitive areas such as bathrooms”.

“The college remains firmly committed to ensuring a safe, respectful, and supportive environment for every student entrusted to our care,” Gleeson said.

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